


Tradition

by jessebee



Category: Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-08
Updated: 2012-04-08
Packaged: 2017-11-03 06:35:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/378394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessebee/pseuds/jessebee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Illya makes a discovery.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tradition

 

 

 

#

 

 

They'd been partners for more than five years and Illya Kuryakin would have said that he knew everything there was to know about Napoleon Solo's body. He'd sparred with it, wrestled with it, rescued it from fetid prisons in countries that no longer existed. He knew it as well as he knew his own, perhaps better; his own body had depended on those curves of muscle and that strength of will more times than anyone would ever count. He _knew_ Napoleon – in sickness and health, in peace and in war.

 

And now in love as well, which was quite possibly the most astonishing event in his life to date.

 

But somehow, he had missed this. "Napoleon."

 

"Hmm?"

 

"You have a piercing. In this ear." He traced a fingertip along the edge of the neat lobe.

 

That body which lay so delightfully close, warm and sated, now tensed, so subtly that Illya wouldn't have known if he hadn't been plastered half on top of the man. "I do not."

 

"You do. Just here." Illya tugged, gently, with two fingers. "You've had it for a long time, I think," he said, stroking the soft skin behind his partner's left ear.

 

Napoleon was silent, and Illya wondered what buried mine he had stepped on. People called Illya himself reticent; what they didn't realize was that Napoleon's past was better barricaded than Illya's had ever been. It was just a more deceptive barricade, a maze of skillful lighting and well-appointed dead ends where Illya's was a simpler, dignified wall.

 

Finally, a sigh. "I thought that had healed up years ago."

 

Seeing the faint line which had appeared between his partner's brows, Illya knew that nothing he could say now would make matters any better or any less awkward. So he didn't; he just laid himself back down at Napoleon's side, one leg across his partner's thigh, one arm up beneath his own head and his other hand resting on the American's bare chest. Napoleon's heartbeat was steady under Illya's palm.

 

"He was always 'The Admiral,'" Napoleon said after a while, and Illya could hear the capital letters. "I never heard anyone call him anything else, not even my parents."

 

His grandfather, Illya realized: Napoleon was talking about his grandfather.

 

"He preferred sail over power. Oh, he loved ships of all kinds, understood them, you knew that by his service record, but he still preferred canvas. 'You can't feel the water,' he'd say. 'The sea has a heartbeat and rhythm and you can't feel it properly with a motor in the way.' It was he who really taught me to handle boats. He took me on a long trip when I was a kid, a long sail. No son of his line – and he really did say it exactly like that – was going to be ignorant of the sea." Napoleon blinked, Illya watched the sweep of black lashes. "You were Navy; you're familiar with the traditions of crossing the equator?"

 

Illya's eyebrows went up; that had indeed been a long sail. "Ah. And you chose the piercing?"

 

Napoleon's shoulder moved in what might have been a shrug. "I wasn't in the mood for a tattoo."

 

Illya's right hand had been curved over Napoleon's head; now he shifted the inch or so necessary and slipped his fingers into his partner's hair, caressing. Napoleon tilted his head up just a little, into the touch. Warmth curled in Illya's belly.

 

"He did it himself, and I wore a little gold ring there, like every pirate picture I'd ever seen. I don't think my folks minded, too much. But eventually I took it out. Not quite the thing to be wearing in my home town."

 

The thread of sarcasm rang clear to Illya's ears, accustomed as he was to Napoleon's nuances. Sarcasm, and something else. "Do you still have it?" he asked, not sure quite why he was asking, but sensing that it was important.

 

"No." Napoleon closed his eyes. "I took another trip and threw it into the sea after he died."

 

"How did he die?"

 

"He drowned." Napoleon's mouth twitched upward in a faint parody of a smile. "Like many old-time sailors, he never bothered to learn to swim. So that if something happened, he'd go down with his ship rather than prolong things, fight in vain for a shore he'd never reach."

 

_Oh, Napoleon_. Illya closed his own eyes and rested his forehead against the point of his partner's shoulder. _At first opportunity, we will work on your swimming skills whether you want to or not. That is one family tradition you will_ _ **not**_ _be following_.

 

_fin_

 

#

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A/N: Both piercings and tattoos have long been traditional elements for sailors. The left ear could be pierced once for every crossing of the equator, the Arctic circle, and the Antarctic circle. Or one might get a tattoo of a turtle standing on its back legs for crossing the equator, denoting that one was now a "shellback" and no longer a "pollywog." Many Western sailors historically never did learn to swim, the rational being that one's chances of survival or rescue if going overboard were quite slim, therefore it would be of little use to draw out the agony.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Title: Tradition  
> Author: jesse  
> Rating: PG13, maybe, for hints of nekkid peoples  
> Pairing: N/I  
> Genre: Slash, with a little angst, because I fail at writing the funny  
> Word Count: 800, give or take  
> Summary: Illya makes a discovery
> 
> A/N: This is, once again, spikesgirl58's fault. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it. Inspired by a discussion we were having and two bits of Napoleon's backstory that I could never quite reconcile.
> 
> Posted to muncle 10/04/09


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